


Reset

by LaityAllyn



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Frisk dies, Sans is having a bad time, Underfell, bros, i wrote this with a fever, paps too, so lets see how this goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaityAllyn/pseuds/LaityAllyn
Summary: Quick story I wrote based off of a fever dream I had. I also wrote this with a fever so it might make perfect sense to me but not to you guys





	Reset

Papyrus could always tell when Sans had a particularly bad nightmare. Not that he really cared, but he did sometimes feel a little guilty for not doing anything when he lay in bed at night listening to Sans trying to sob quietly in his room. To be honest, Papyrus was unsure of how Sans would react if he suddenly decided to do something. Papyrus lay in bed, deep in thought when he heard it. The bathroom sink.

For some reason that Papyrus had yet to understand, Sans always brushed his teeth after a bad nightmare. Sometimes he would be up for hours, scrubbing every inch of his mouth. Papyrus was sure he would never understand it. That was, until he started having them too. 

He was always in King Asgore’s judgment hall. And he was dead. The first time he actually paid attention to it was when he walked straight through a pillar. In his strangely vivid dreams he began to wonder why he was where he was. And soon he started remembering. It was a human child, the very same one that would always show up at the end of the dream. He would fight them, sometimes right after they left the ruins, sometimes as they reached the edge of Snowdin, or, once they’d passed through. He always lost, years of cultivated power and strength worthless, it all fell to the determination of a human soul. 

Sans was there too, and he always wore Papyrus’s scarf. Papyrus found it slightly touching, Sans rarely cared about anything but once or twice Papyrus had watched Sans painstakingly gather his dust from the forest floor and carry it all the way to the echo flowers. They had always been Papyrus’s favorite but he didn’t even know that Sans had picked up on his love for the flowers. 

The human and Sans would fight, Sans showing determination that rivaled anything Papyrus had ever seen. Something in Sans had snapped and in the end, Sans always snapped. Quite literally. Papyrus, with his tactical eye, had almost memorized the moment and the signs that led up to it. The human would lunge forward, Sans would doge, his ankle would break from strain placed upon it and injuries received earlier in the battle, he would fall, and the human would stab him, right in the ribs. But before Sans died he would do something that would haunt Papyrus forever. As the human pulled out their knife he lunged forward, tearing out their throat with his razor-sharp teeth. 

Papyrus almost always turned away from the grisly sight. The human's blood dripping from his brother’s mouth and the small chunks of tender flesh that, even while he was dying, Sans tried desperately to spit out and remove from his teeth. Eventually, Sans would give up, lying on the floor of the hall as he began to dust, mixing with the blood pooling from the body next to him. 

Then Papyrus would wake up and, on cue, Sans would practically sprint to the bathroom and scrub out his mouth. After three or four nights of the same routine Papyrus had enough. This was pathetic. Something was going on and he needed answers. 

The next night Papyrus followed Sans to the bathroom, startling the small skeleton who nearly choked himself on his toothbrush when he saw Papyrus appear in the doorway. Papyrus caught a glance at himself in the mirror, he looked awful, there were dark circles under his eye sockets and his eyelights were dim. Was this why Sans was so exhausted? He thought to himself. How long has he been dealing with this?

Sans quickly spat out a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink and turned to face him. 

“Uh… whats up Boss? Ya need anything?” Papyrus pondered his question for a moment.

“Actually… yes.” Sans seemed shocked, Papyrus hadn’t needed anything from him since he was a babybones. “ I need to talk to you.” before Sans could say anything he continued, “I’ve been having these dreams lately…” Sans’s eyelights shrunk to the size of pinpricks “it’s the same one, over and over again-”

“please no” 

Sans’s voice was barely more than a whisper. 

“no...no...no no no nonononono” He began to tremble and sank down to the floor, tears gathering in his sockets. Papyrus could only stare in disbelief as his older brother, who _never_ cried in front of _anyone_ broke down and started sobbing in front of him. Unsure of what to do, Papyrus slowly sat down next to his brother on the bathroom floor. He placed a hand on his brother’s back and left it there, not used to being the one to give comfort. 

Eventually, Sans stopped crying and uncurled from the ball he had curled himself into. Papyrus wasn’t sure if he should speak or not but thankfully, Sans made the decision for him.

“i could feel that you were there. once you're dead you’re supposed to stay dead but for some reason, you don't.” he mumbled . “it was different the last few times and i hoped-” he drew in a ragged breath, “i hoped that i was wrong”

“What are they?” Papyrus had to know, it had been gnawing at him since the dreams had started.

“resets” Sans was quiet for a moment and Papyrus was afraid he wouldn’t elaborate. “they’re real life, when the kid gets bored or stuck they start over. no one’s supposed to remember them but i do… and now you.” Sans spoke the last words like they were a death sentence and suddenly Papyrus had more questions than before.

“So these, dreams, are real?”

“yup”

“They actually happen.”

“yup”  
“And you remember them.”

“Mhmm”

“How long has this been going on?” Sans sighed and buried his face in his arms.

“years.”

“So...I actually die?” Sans just nodded into his arms. “And you too?” another nod. Papyrus sat for a moment to process the new information he was given. This certainly was a good reason for Sans to be crying at all hours of the night. Papyrus realized that Sans must be exhausted, tonight’s breakdown was evidence of this.

“Come on.” Papyrus stood up, tugging on Sans’s arm in an effort to get him to follow suit. Sans stood up and let Papyrus pull him to his room and lead him to the bed. With Sans situated Papyrus returned to his own room and grabbed his pillows and blanket. He returned to Sans’s room climbing onto the bed and over a very confused Sans. 

Papyrus didn’t say anything as he curled up, ignoring his brother and going to sleep, the pillows he brought with him a barrier between the two. It had been a long time since he had crawled into his older brother’s room after a nightmare and he still wanted his personal space. But by morning it didn’t matter. When Papyrus woke up the pillows were behind him and Sans was pressed to his chest, still snoring. Instead of pushing him away like he would have done if Sans was awake Papyrus only loosened his grip on his brother, enjoying the old familiar sensation of Sans’s soul beating in his chest. If they were to both continue their lives with these...resets... something needed to change. and, as Papyrus watched the even rise and fall of his brother’s ribcage he realized that that needed to be him.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on my Tumblr [LaityAllyn](https://laityallyn.tumblr.com/)


End file.
